Doctors create 'skin masks' for wounded soldiers

Posted at: 11/19/2013 11:31 AM
By: Emily Baucum, WOAI

Researchers have created a biomask to help heal burns and facial wounds soldiers receive on the battlefield.Photo: WOAI

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (WOAI) -- Imagine this: a mask made of real skin that doctors can surgically implant onto your face. It sounds like science fiction, but it's closer than ever to reality for our wounded warriors. Forty percent of injured service members are coming home with facial wounds. Some are so scarred, so disfigured, that doctors here in San Antonio are working day and night to make their lives better.

Military doctors say the way they treat facial burns hasn't changed in decades. Dozens of surgeries. A lifetime of scars. Doctors say we owe our troops more than patchwork faces. They're calling the answer a Biomask. Retired Staff Sergeant Jason March's journey took him from the battlefield to the operating room. "All I remember is, there was a thud. I was shot in the back of the head," he says. "Close to 80 surgeries."